fold

verb folds · folding · folded · folden

1. transitive To bend (any thin material, such as paper) over so that it comes in contact with itself. Next, fold the paper over, so the right half is on top of the left half.

   Similar: bend, crease

2. transitive To make the proper arrangement (in a thin material) by bending. If you fold the sheets, they'll fit more easily in the drawer.
3. transitive To draw or coil (one’s arms, a snake’s body, etc.) around something so as to enclose or embrace it.
4. transitive To stir (semisolid ingredients) gently, with an action as if folding over a solid. Fold the egg whites into the batter.
5. intransitive To become folded; to form folds. Cardboard doesn't fold very easily.
6. informal, intransitive To fall over; to collapse or give way; to be crushed. The chair folded under his enormous weight.

   Similar: buckle, cave, cave in, crumple, fall over

7. intransitive, transitive To give way on a point or in an argument. He folded that point and didn't bring it up again.

   Similar: buckle, cave, cave in, crumple, concede, give in, give way, yield

8. intransitive To withdraw from betting.
9. intransitive To abandon completing one's hand and play in a defensive manner to avoid dealing in. With no hearts in the river and no chance to hit his straight, he folded.
10. broadly, intransitive To withdraw or quit in general.
11. intransitive To fail, to collapse, to disband.
12. intransitive Of a company, to cease to trade. The company folded after six quarters of negative growth.
13. transitive To double or lay together (one’s arms, hands, wings, etc.) so as to overlap with each other. He folded his arms in defiance.
14. obsolete, transitive To plait or mat (hair) together.
15. transitive To enclose in a fold of material, to swathe, wrap up, cover, enwrap.
16. transitive To enclose within folded arms, to clasp, to embrace (see also enfold). He put out his arms and folded her to his breast. And for a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils. His mouth was set as steel.
17. figuratively, transitive To cover up, to conceal. I will not poyſon thee with my attaint, / Nor fold my fault in cleanly coin’d excuſes, / My ſable ground of ſinne I will not paint, / To hide the truth of this falſe nights abuſes.
18. obsolete, transitive To ensnare, to capture.
19. transitive To split (a line of text) across multiple lines, to obey line length limitations.

    Opposite: unfold

Opposite: unfold

noun folds

1. An act of folding. give the bedsheets a fold before putting them in the cupboard.

   Similar: bending, creasing

2. Any correct move in origami.

   Similar: bending, creasing

3. A bend or crease. […] There sat the Shadow fear’d of man; Who broke our fair companionship, ⁠And spread his mantle dark and cold; And wrapt thee formless in the fold, […]

   Similar: bend, crease

4. A layer, such as of folded or wrapped cloth. […] the Ancient Ægyptian Mummies, were ſhrowded in a Number of Folds of Linnen, beſmeared with Gummes, in manner of Seare-Cloth; […]

   Similar: ply

5. A clasp, embrace. […] the weake wanton Cupid Shall from your necke vnlooſe his amorous fould, […]
6. A coil of a snake’s body.
7. One of the doorleaves of a folding door.
8. A gentle curve of the ground; gentle hill or valley.
9. The division between the top and bottom halves of a broadsheet: headlines above the fold will be readable in a newsstand display; usually the fold. Newspaper editors know the importance of putting the most important information “above the fold,” that is, visible when the paper is folded and on the rack.
10. broadly The division between the part of a web page visible in a web browser window without scrolling; usually the fold. For example, a story that is "page I, above the fold" is considered very important news. In web page design, the fold signifies the place at which the user has to scroll down to get more information.
11. The bending or curving of one or a stack of originally flat and planar surfaces, such as sedimentary strata, as a result of plastic (i.e. permanent) deformation. The folds are most abrupt to the eastward; to the west, they diminish in boldness, and become gentle undulations
12. obsolete A wrapping or covering.
13. Any of a family of higher-order functions that process a data structure recursively to build up a value. It was Erik Meijer who coined the name hylomorphism to describe a computation that consists of a fold after an unfold. The unfold produces a data structure and the fold consumes it.
14. A section of source code that can be collapsed out of view in an editor to aid readability.
15. One individual part of something described as manifold, twofold, fourfold, etc.

noun folds

1. A pen or enclosure for sheep or other domestic animals. Leaps o're the fence with ease into the fold.

   Similar: enclosure, pen, penfold, pinfold

2. Any enclosed piece of land belonging to a farm or mill; yard, farmyard.
3. An enclosure or dwelling generally.
4. collective A group of sheep or goats, particularly those kept in a given enclosure.

   Similar: flock

5. figuratively Home, family.

   Similar: home, family

6. A church congregation, a group of people who adhere to a common faith and habitually attend a given church; also, the Christian church as a whole, the flock of Christ. And other sheepe I haue, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall heare my voyce; and there shall be one fold, and one shepheard.

   Similar: congregation, flock, fold, laity

7. figuratively A group of people with shared ideas or goals or who live or work together. Having suffered the loss of Rooney just as he had returned to the fold, Moyes' mood will not have improved as Liverpool took the lead in the third minute.

   Similar: cohort, community

verb folds · folding · folded

1. transitive To confine (animals) in a fold, to pen in. The star that bids the shepherd fold, Now the top of heaven doth hold.
2. figuratively, transitive To include in a spiritual ‘flock’ or group of the saved, etc.
3. transitive To place sheep on (a piece of land) in order to manure it.

noun

1. dialectal, poetic, uncountable The Earth; earth; land; country.